this is the second devlog from a series of posts regarding different topics related to talisman of dawn's process. if you have any questions or suggestions of topics, you can say in the comments! thank you. i hope you enjoy this one too.

WARNING: they'll probaby have spoilers so be aware!!!!!

Who is, in fact, Mudhik?

A not-so-funny ramble about our funny little man...

SHER... I AM YOUR FATHER...

i mentioned this in the previous devlog, but some (if not most) of the characters in talisman of dawn are based on things i have seen/witnessed in real life. mudhik is not an exception. he is, in fact, based on a family member of mine LOL

since the beginning i wanted him to be an obnoxiously caring person and a glaring hypocrite. the type of person that would often confuse you, making you think "didn't he say to do (this)? why are his actions the complete opposite?". he's probably the only one in his family that had a healthy marriage, but his view of it is completely distorted, so he thinks it was bad. he's dumb like that.

to be honest with you, i didn't think much of why he thought the way he did in the first demo. i was too focused on sher and shariar to actually give him any thought. i just wrote him as i've seen people act before, and that was it. his intentions weren't as well-known to me.

until one day, i decided to research about terrible marriage advice so i could have more ideas to put in the 'secrets of love' -- i needed advice especifically for the scene before shariar almost destroys his relationship with sher, and it needed to move both men into action. i also needed a reason for why mudhik was so pushy with it -- which i had to put in his dialogue with duna about the book.

i went to the darkest corners of the internet to find "alpha male" coaches and advice and at first, i was surprised. most of them were giving actual good advice -- eat well, study hard, take care of yourself and focus on your own life -- and i was like "where's the catch?" because there's always one. i had to go deeper. i had to see people talking about it, i needed to know what they ACTUALLY thought. so i kept looking, and i found the same thing, but i also found guys saying "you need to focus on yourself so you can find a good girl, not anyone" and "if you're working hard, you'll attract women who will want to stay with you, not gold diggers". and then something clicked in my head. "why this obsession with good girls?".

love was a reward for their hard work, so of course the girls they would get had to be "good" ones, "worthy" of them. and that was when everything else clicked -- these men think they deserve love when they are financially successful. and that's where they meet their paradox: "gold diggers" will not look for poor people, but for successful ones. and the thing is -- these guys think they can BUY love and women, so that way they'll attract the people they hate the most, and it will put them in a spiral of frustration - work hard, gain money, pay for "love", attract gold diggers, get angry, work harder, gain more money, pay for more "love", attract MORE gold diggers. everything made sense. their pride was in their hard work, and their anger was in what they thought it was going to be "granted" for them -- romantic love, appreciation, praise, and a woman that would always overlook their flaws. or, putting into men's perspective -- one that would recognize they DON'T have flaws, because since they work hard, they are doing correctly, so all the "flaws" women see are about them being unfairly exigent.

mudhik's view of love is that exact same one. and yet, he fell in love with marwa, that was nothing close to the "perfect woman". she was taller and affectionately made fun of him. she was anything close to a "feminine", delicate woman, and yet he loved her and was loved by her. when marwa stayed with him when he became poor, he felt undeserving, uncomfortable even. he started working hard to be "worthy", to have the "permission" to be with her. then, she proposed to him while he was still poor. he tried to reject it, but she was relentless. after that, he became successful again. and after some time, she died, and he never got the time to properly "pay" her back for all her support.

mudhik got love when he didn't "deserve" it. he had a woman which he obeyed and consulted every time he wanted to make a decision, married her and had two beautiful girls. he was, and still is, absolutely happy with the life he had. it's completely different from what he expected, and it's absolutely strange to him. he thinks he was too "weak" to live life "as it should be", but in fact, there's nothing "strong" in being stubborn about wacky points of view.  that's the tragedy of his character, also the thing that makes us most irritated lmao

"He (...) didn't realize the real secret of love was right there, inside his fatherly heart."

SECRETS OF LOVE

i don't remember if i had the idea of the book early or later in concept-making. i just felt mudhik was too nice to be the incarnation of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, but too traditional to not belive in that "advice". and i wanted to represent how people don't come up with those things out of nowhere. they see it somewhere, they consume media that speaks of it, that praises it and puts it as something incredible and groundbreaking that is only believed by the "chosen ones" that will be "persecuted" by their strong, life-changing, revolutionary beliefs (lol lmao). just like a religion, i think. but it's not supposed to be a bible. it's supposed to be a life advice book, like many "philosophical" literature that exists out there.

it also doesn't have an author. it's one of those books anonimously published, or the author's name was lost. because we don't know who first came up with that, just that everyone acts following that strange point of view. you can tell me certain authors came with it first in some ancient books, but toxic masculinity wasn't created by them, but rather endorsed anyway (in my opinion).

i loved reading through alpha male coaching because it's absolutely insane. batshit. my view of it as a woman is that it's rage completely out of place. right effort with the wrong intentions and the worst takes in existence. it's like watching a hypocrite teaching how to be an hypocrite and telling that everyone else is a hypocrite for not learning it. it doesn't make much sense.

i've read advice telling men that women's weak spot was their "ego". that they wanted to the praised and validated and that was a wrong thing to want. but like. who doesn't want to be praised and validated? what is wrong with that? do you think you don't have ego yourself? it's literally what you're trying to build with this advice!!!

anyway. i won't dwelve into it. i think you see enough of it in tod (or will see, if you haven't played yet). but it's kind of insane comparing the advice that's given to women and to men -- while women is all about "show how you care! show how you're interested! then, he WILL show how he's interested!", men is "DON'T show how you care! wait, DON'T CARE AT ALL! sleep with as many woman as you can! that will make you look SO MASCULINE!" which is just the recipe to disaster. it creates a horrible dynamic that i personally am too tired of seeing. and in the end, it makes everyone frustrated. sleep with as many women to show you're a good partner? to who? to the woman who can't sleep with anyone because or else she'll be labeled as a bitch (by YOU?)???????? helloooooo????????

(translation: DOES A MONSTER LIKE THIS DESERVES FORGIVENESS? NO - 10580 | YES - 614)

THE END OF DEVLOG....

i guess this is it for today's devlog. i hope it's comprehensible LOL at some point i think i started to drift away... this topic makes me think a lot... so it's hard to keep focus.

thanks for reading it. take care